Pictures!

Sam and I spent the weekend at Meaghan's place. It was a nice break from the city! We played games, watched a movie and just relaxed! The best part was the long hot shower...there was water pressure! We've got a busy week ahead of us. We're moving today, going to Mysore tomorrow, working with TFT and DIYA, and then off to Chennai for the weekend! These next two weeks are going to fly by.

I'm sure I'll have lots of stories this week, so instead of writing a big post today, I'm going to put up a few pictures!

Welcome to Bangalore! The view from dad's apartment!

This is a taste of Bangalore traffic.We don't even park this close to other cars in Canada.

Just hanging out on the side of the road.

Sam riding with Ganesh!

A typical family outing. Usually 3 or 4 riding on a motorcycle.

This one's for you Jack! Woodville up!!

Sammy under a tree of pink leaves.

Palm tree at my favourite hotel.

Having my mocktail mojito at the Oberoi (5-star delux hotel)

Sam and dad at the Oberoi:)

pile of garbage...not yet on fire.

Small Hindu temple.

Street dog. This is about as close as I can get.

Cows eating garbage right by our apartment.

The Kara School kids were getting ready to perform an Indian dance. This one didn't stop crying the whole day. Super cute.

The Fishermen Trust organized this amazing adventure day for the Kara kids.

Same event!

Kara kids waiting for their turn to dance.

Commercial Street-- where I almost died!

We spotted a couple monkeys on top of a building on our way out of the grocery store.

Going out for lunch at UB City Mall. The only thing we could afford there was the food. 

Same place!

The house where my dad grew up! I took this one for you Grandma! So neat to see this. 

Me and Meaghan's adorable Pitbull at the farm.

Farm geese!

I've taken over 500 pictures so far, so this is just a taste of a few! I'll post more on facebook when I get home!

White Privilege Takes Effect

We are just the worst representation of white people in India.

Monday morning began with us waking up and packing up. It was moving day. At 10am, a driver came to pick us up, along with all of our stuff. We headed into Lingarajpuram, 6km and a good 30minutes away to our new home. The house belongs to the youth pastor's parents, who offered us their first floor for a fair price. Looking forward to having our own space, and finally unpacking some of our clothes, we dragged in our luggage and attempted to settle in. No such luck. It took 10 minutes, and a strong effort to hold back tears to quickly realize that this place was not going to be our Indian home. There was a lack of storage space, we weren't able to unpack a thing. The bathroom had just been redone, but there was no hot water available. The setup was very awkward, as we were meant to live with another girl, and we had to travel through her bedroom to get anywhere in the house. Other factors made the space uncomfortable for us snobbish white privileged girls, and with that we called daddy. He was quick to make alternate arrangements, and we awkwardly left that night. We couldn't exactly blame cultural difference for our discomfort, as there was a white British couple staying there for a couple nights.

In the end, everyone was very understanding and so kind to us. We even went to a movie with the youth pastor and the guys from TFT that same night. It was a Bollywood film. It was not in English, and there were no subtitles. But that's ok, because in an Indian theatre, you can talk as loud as you want. Need to make a phone call, don't go anywhere, it's no problem to do it from your seat. Are you excited about something that happened in the movie, you should probably whistle, clap and cheer! Sam and I each had one of the guys interpreting the movie for us, but our lack of understanding had a lot to do with the on screen rooster fights and the romantic gestures of stalking and suicide. Three hours later (now we know why they have intermissions), we exited the film with apologies from Raj, as the film was quite violent. It was definitely an entertaining first glimpse of Indian cinema.

The night ended with a short motorcycle ride home, some apologies to dad for causing him stress earlier in the day, and a good night sleep in a comfortable king sized bed. Talk about spoiled rotten white privilege.

As for today, we have spent some time doing some research for TFT, and preparing documents for their Drop-in centre.

Don't Touch Me.

The past two days have been insane. This is Sunday.

Sam and I woke up bright and early and made our way over to an army base where TFT was helping with a school event. This event was supposed to happen the day before, but there was a political riot, and everything shut down...you know how it is. So the event was an annual program where the kids performed some traditional African dances (???), some amazing Indian hip hop routines and paid tribute to the military by competing in an obstacle course. It was pretty cool. We were the official photographers, and we attempted to help the kids into the harnesses and helmets (key word: attempted). After Raj and the boys praised us for all our hard labour (sun tanning is a lot of work), we headed off to the Oberoi Hotel for lunch and into the mad downtown for shopping/battle. The following is a description of my first (and hopefully last) experience of Commerical Street.

When I first turned the corner and had a glimpse of Commercial Street, I didn't know how we would even get to the first store. There were people everywhere! There were dogs sleeping in the middle of the street, and best of all, there were still cars and motorcycles moving through the crowd, blazing their horns, as if people should not be walking there. At one point, a motorcycle came literally 1 inch from running over my toes (but that's my fault apparently!) We made our way in and out of stores, probably touching more than a million people in the process, and we decided to temporarily escape the madness by turning down one of the side streets. BIG MISTAKE. This is where a man with no arms and no legs hobbled over to me, asked for money and stood on my foot, trying to prevent my escape. Terrifying. After about 30 minutes of anxiety, I told Sam and my dad that I couldn't do this anymore. We grabbed a drink at Coffee Day and just barely made it back to our car. By the way, I bought nothing.

That night we decided to wind down by going to a movie. We walked past the building where we had seen monkeys earlier that day. We went into the theatre, grabbed some caramel popcorn and Indian cuisine and mozied on into our assigned luxury seats (seriously, they were like lazy boy recliners). Just as I was settled in for the film (Season of the Witch-- terrible), we were asked by the screen to stand for the National Anthem. WHAT!? About 5 minutes, and a lot of giggling later, we sat back down and the movie began. We were again taken aback when about 40 minutes in "INTERMISSION" flashed across the screen. What an experience.

After the movie, we arrived home safely, only to realize that our internet was still not working (it hadn't been all day). Being the procrastinator that I am, I had only a few hours to complete an online test for one of my courses. Uh oh. Long story short, and 50 questions later, I submitted my test via Blackberry. Not easy, not my best test.

Stay tuned for Monday.

Transvestites, Beggars and Garbage

I saw real poverty in India for the first time yesterday. We spent at least an hour on the back of motorcycles and drove into an area I hadn't yet been. The place we ended up was a wealthy part of town, but the drive there opened my eyes to stereotypical India.

We were stopped in traffic, and I noticed a few people drifting amongst the vehicles asking for money. One of them caught my eye. Being one of two white people on the road, I was bound to stick out as a tourist. This woman (or what I thought was a woman) came over to me and began poking me, asking for money. I had nothing with me, but I had been told not to give money to anyone anyway. As it turns out, the transvestite beggars are a major thing in India. When I didn't give her anything, she clapped her hands at me (some sort of curse) and moved on to Sam. Shortly after, a younger girl came along pointing at her stomach and her mouth, trying to explain to me that she was hungry. It was far more depressing to see than the first time.

This is what I've learned: if someone is begging, give them food, not money. If a child is begging, you shouldn't give them anything, since it encourages the beggar's lifestyle. If you really want to help, donating money to an organization dedicated to helping the street kids is the best thing to do.

In the West, we are trying to save the world with our "green" movement. The truth is, if global warming is at all real, whatever we are doing to help is being completely undone by India. They don't have garbage cans on the street. They dump their garbage anywhere and everywhere, and then when the pile is high enough, they set it on fire. It smells awesome.

Another thing about India is that they haven't quite figured out electricity. They have power outages everyday. When we were stuck in traffic yesterday, one of the overhead wires basically blew up. I saw fire come from the wire.

I also saw two motorcycles collide yesterday. When I told that to Jack he laughed. He explained that you'd never see that in Canada. The two smallest vehicles on the road getting into an accident. Oh India. Everyone was fine by the way!

Tomorrow, Sam and I are helping out with an adventure competition for some school kids over here. It's going to be a lot of fun. Indian kids are crazy cute. As for today, we're staying in and working on some stuff for The Fisherman's Trust.

Greetings...

My dad came home from work a couple nights ago with a very tragic and bizarre story. He received a text message in the morning from a business friend whom he had recently made plans to meet up with next week. When my dad opened this message, he was completely taken back when he read "greetings from beyond". This man had sent out a mass text informing all his contacts of his suicide that had taken place 2 hours earlier, and continued the message by requesting their presence at his memorial, which is taking place today (Thursday, January 20th).

It's not often that you'd receive a text message like that to start your day. However, in Bangalore, I'd imagine that's not the first time it's happened. Bangalore is the suicide capital of India. Most of the suicide statistics belong to farmers (that's what Sam wrote her Master's MRP was about).

The Fisherman's Trust is the organization that Sam and I are working with and they are in the process of opening a youth drop-in centre to address issues such as the high suicide rate. Sam and I hope to contribute to this project (although we really don't have much to offer!)

In other news, I saw a dead dog today. It was disgusting and very sad. We popped by my dad's office, and we will shortly be dropping by a school that The Fisherman's Trust is involved with to see what that's all about!

I still have not adjusted to sleeping in this country, but that's what 4pm naps are for!

I miss you Canada!

no water...

Woke up early again, feeling ok. I got to chat on skype with Jack, Mom, Gemma and Wendy. So nice!

Sam and I headed out on our own today to meet Raj and get a heads up on what we'll be doing as volunteers. We tried to bargain with several rickshaw drivers, until one finally said he'd go the distance and put up the metre. The rest of them were trying to charge us far too much. They think we're these white chumps! We showed them!

It took half an hour to drive 6km. That's how insane the traffic is. Raj and Nandoo met us at one point, and we hopped on their motorbikes and drove the rest of the way. First time on a motorbike, not so bad!

The meeting went well, and it was great to chat with the guys. I started feeling tired, so we headed home, and finished watching Eat, Pray, Love-- a must watch on this trip.

I took a whole bunch of pictures today; mainly of the traffic, but I caught a couple cows, some dogs and even a chicken! I know it's a major city and I know I have access to "anything", but it's still so different. The food you get here is so different-- a warning against Indian honey nut cheerios. I'm still adjusting. Sam and I are trying to stay awake today. Oh, and we're waiting for water to arrive. We're running low, and we can't drink it out of the taps, so we hope to get some soon! Or else we'll have to venture out into the traffic again. Once is really enough for today!

Church Day

I woke up at 5am. It was a bit of an improvement. I skyped Jack from the bathroom, as to not wake up Samantha, but with all the racket, she was bound to wake up soon anyway. I'm very homesick today, but my stomach isn't so bad!

We went to church this morning. I'm not sure if it's because I come from Affinity where services are usually about 45 minutes, but 2 and a half hours of church seemed a little long. Song, speaker, more music, dedication, prayer, special music, offering, a longer speaker and finally a song. Wow. It was our first time there, so of course we had to meet everyone. They were all so nice and seemed excited to have us there. 

My favourite part of the entire service was a song that two guys sang "Your Grace Still Amazes Me". The younger guy was probably about 12, and seriously, move over Justin Bieber (and I love Justin Bieber). He was so incredible. I wanted to record him, but I didn't want to be that weirdo on my first day there. 

Our cousin Cynthia is coming over soon. I've never met her, but Sam just adores her, so I'm looking forward to it. I think I really just need to start doing things! 

Oh, and I saw some cows today. They were just chillin' in the middle of the road...which is totally normal here! Crazy India!

Missing home. 

Ohmmmmm

The weekend has brought me some relief. I am feeling much better and was able to eat something. Sam and I slept pretty much all day again, but I think it's the jet lag that's been making me sicker, so I just sleep it off. I'll adjust soon.

The Hindu temple is super close, and you can see it from our bedroom window. Since about 6am, there has been a constant (and I mean it literally has not stopped) Ohmmmmmmm. It's not very loud, but it is crazy irritating. Every now and then the Mosque attempts to compete with their call to worship, but it doesn't last very long. We're only staying at my dad's apartment for another week, but he's got to live with the ohmmming every single day. My mom is coming in February, and she's already dreading the noise (I guess she remembers from when she lived here).

So we found a place to live! It is absolutely the most perfect situation. It is close to where Sam and I will be volunteering, it's cheap, we will each have our own room, and we basically have our own apartment. We will shop and cook for ourselves, which is amazing, because I have a low tolerance for food at this point, and the most exciting part of it all is that they have a Western toilet, THANK THE LORD! Indian toilets are nothing more than holes in the ground. It will still be interesting though because their bathrooms are quite different from what we are used to. They consist of a shower head, a toilet and a sink. There is no separate shower and everything gets wet! We'll see how that goes.

On the upper floor of the house lives the youth pastor and his wife. They have a separate apartment, so we're living with wonderful people, but we'll have our own space. It's so ideal! Something to praise God for-- good health and a safe place to live.

I start my placement orientation on Monday, and I can't wait. There are still some issues with my school, but I know that God and Raj will take care of that! Happy to be here, but I'm missing home! And I can't stand the Ohmmmmmmmm.

Friday, January 14, 9pm

I know I probably won't blog everyday, but I also don't know what God has in store for me here, so it might be worth it!

Before I went to bed, my dad had warned me that at 5am the Muslims and Hindus will begin their worship and it will probably wake me up. So when I woke up this morning to a song that sounded like it was in my bedroom, I assumed it was either the Muslims or Hindus. That was until I head the words "shine Jesus shine". It was the dang Christians! There's a Catholic school right outside my dad's apartment. My dad told us to come look. It was amazing. Hundreds of young girls lined up, facing our balcony, beautifully singing "Shine Jesus Shine". The most incredible part of it all is that "Shine Jesus Shine" was my grandpa's favourite song, and it always makes me think of him. He's part of the reason I'm in India. All my grandparent's were missionaries in India, and now I have the opportunity to follow in their footsteps.

Sam and I went back to bed until 1pm, at which point we forced ourselves to get up. My dad's little helper friend, Tege (I need to get the proper spelling), made us some delicious Indian lunch. It tasted amazing, but my stomach hated it. After going for a short walk with Sam and my dad, we had to get a rickshaw back home, and I slept the day away. I'm feeling better now, but I have to watch what I eat.

We're looking at apartments for Sam and I tomorrow. Something a little closer to where we'll be volunteering, because we start Monday. I am so excited for that.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to see more of Bangalore tomorrow. So far it's been traffic, temples and stray dogs!

I'm in Bangalore

Day 1: January 14, 3am (Bangalore time)

My first thought as I entered India was, "I bet it stinks". I was surprised when I entered a classy brand new airport and then stepped outside in the refreshing cool Indian air (12 degrees). My dad and his entire entourage came to greet us. They were so sweet. Raj brought us flowers and the men took our bags to the car. Awesome first impression India! Second impression... not so awesome. Driving in India may be the most terrifying thing ever. Move over China, India takes the lead for world's worst drivers. I'm not sure why they have lanes or stop lights for that matter. I do however know why they have car horns-- to tell people to move or die.

Anyway, Sammy and I arrived safely after about 18 hours in the air with one transfer in France (by the way, Paris is overrated). 3am we're sitting in my dad's apartments and we decide to make some Skype calls, since it's 4:30pm in Canada. Mom and grandma are happy to hear from us. I called Jack, and he stuttered over my name "C-C-Carly?????" (almost as if he doesn't want to say the wrong girlfriend's name). He was surprised to hear my voice on the other end of his cellphone. Skype is amazing!

I've already asked God to remind me why I'm here! I'm such a home-body. I know he has something incredible in store for me and for Sam. He opened door after door to get me here, so I know I'm in the right place!